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ABSTRACT
Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) safeguarded his imperial vision with a series of wills. Sensing that his life would be relatively short, he left to his trustees the task of carrying out his wishes after his death. He also left a substantial fortune to make it possible. This article uses those wills to follow the development of Rhodes’ ‘big idea’, the creation of a secret society to promote imperial expansion, from its birth in Oxford to the final compromise of the Rhodes Scholarships. The article questions the existence of a much-quoted teenage will, examines the influences on Rhodes at Oxford that led to the famous ‘Confession of Faith’ will and identifies a link between the 1892 will and the Mandela Rhodes scholarships founded in 2003.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the help and encouragement of Lucy McCann, senior archivist of the Bodleian Library, and Robert Petre, archivist of Oriel College, University of Oxford.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Thomas, Rhodes: The Race for Africa, 21.
2. MSS Afr. s. 115, 92–93, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
3. Michell, Life and Times, vol. 1, 44.
4. McDonald, Rhodes: A Life, 26.
5. Ibid., 59.
6. Quoted in Michell, Life and Times, vol. 1, 53.
7. Quoted in Rotberg, The Founder, 73.
8. Ibid., 78.
9. MEM 2 A5/1, Oriel College, Oxford.
10. MSS. Afr. t. 14, 214–28, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
11. Clark, Cecil Rhodes and his College, 3.
12. ACA 1 A1/3, Oriel College, Oxford.
13. ACA 2 A1/1, Oriel College, Oxford.
14. Numbers shrank from a peak of around 60,000 in 1871 to around 18,000 in 1877. Thomas, Rhodes: The Race for Africa, 95.
15. Ibid., 101.
16. Michell, Life and Times, vol. 1, 63.
17. Thomas, Rhodes: The Race for Africa, 101.
18. MSS. Afr. s. 134, 1–131, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
19. Clark, Cecil Rhodes and His College, 5.
20. Hensman, Cecil Rhodes, 24.
21. Ibid., 27.
22. Michell, Life and Times, 84.
23. Williams, Cecil Rhodes, 40.
24. The ‘Confession of Faith’ document together with copies of all Rhodes’ wills are to be found in MSS. Afr. t. 1, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
25. Michell, Life and Times, 73.
26. Williams, Cecil Rhodes, 51.
27. Baker, Cecil Rhodes by his Architect, 11.
28. That did not stop Alan Sorrell drawing a picture (appropriately called ‘imaginative portrait’) of the event for the Illustrated London News showing Rhodes sitting at the feet of Ruskin listening intently. Illustrated London News, 18 July 1953, 86–7.
29. It was so popular that it had to be moved at the last minute into the Sheldonian Theatre.
30. Ruskin, Selected Writings, 202.
31. Baker. Cecil Rhodes by his Architect, 10–13.
32. MSS. Afr. t. 5, 34, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
33. Ruskin, Selected Writings, 203.
34. Quoted in Ziegler, Legacy, 7.
35. There is no evidence that the undergraduate Rhodes met the future Lord Milner, a scholar at Balliol from 1872 to 1876.
36. John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, 20 Jan. 1961.
37. Stead, The Last Will, 89.
38. Ibid., 93.
39. Ibid., 95.
40. Radziwill, Cecil Rhodes, 126.
41. Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom, 524.
42. Ibid., 7.
43. Ibid., 41.
44. Rotberg, The Founder, 385.
45. Ibid., 384.
46. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 3, para. 4.
47. Ibid., book 8, para. 19.
48. Gross, Rhodes of Africa, 415.
49. Rotberg, The Founder, 147.
50. Stead, The Last Will, 103.
51. Baker, Cecil Rhodes by his Architect, 153.
52. Stead, The Last Will, 105.
53. Ibid., 104.
55. Quoted in Ziegler, Legacy, 323.
56. Quoted in Maylam, The Cult of Rhodes, 134.
57. MSS. Afr. t. 1, 13, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
58. Rotberg, The Founder, 664
59. An ‘Oriel man’ described the speech in the London journal Mainly about People, 29 March 1902.
60. Hensman, Cecil Rhodes, 23.
61. Ibid., 32.
62. Clark, Cecil Rhodes and his College, 10.
63. Ziegler, Legacy, 23.
64. Stead, The Last Will, 102
65. MSS. Afr. t. 1, 15, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
66. Rotberg, ‘Did Cecil Rhodes Really Try to Control the World?’.
67. Letter from Rhodes to Stead, 19 Aug. 1991, MSS. Afr. t. 1, 20, Bodleian Library, Oxford.